Slow Poison
by Xx starlight-moon xX
Summary: A collection of drabbles - one for each of the five senses - centred around Sirius Black.


**A / N : More drabbles! And this time there's no order to keep track of. ;)**

**Thanks (again) to the lovely and talented Mesteria, for the idea. The title is from a song by The Bravery. **

**Reviews are always welcome. :)**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Sight<span> :**

Sirius stamps his feet, his breath emerging in a huff of hot mist. His ankles are starting to ache, and despite the Cloak, he can feel water dripping off his nose.

Two hours of standing sentry, and he has yet to see anything that warrants it.

He is just about to Disapparate when he hears the familiar crack, and masked figures appear outside number 12. One of them is recognizable at any distance as Bellatrix. She laughs, throwing her head back in a flash of silver.

She leaves Regulus with a stranger, who claps him on the back, clearly ill at ease.

"You alright?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

His brother's tone is peeved, snappish . .. scared.

When his companion departs, Regulus starts to shake. Of course he does.

_Idiot, _Sirius thinks furiously. _**Idiot. **_

His brother disappears inside, and Sirius is left to stew in hot, fierce silence.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Smell <span>: **

The first thing he notices, as a dog, is the smell. It's almost ridiculous to think he ever relied on vision. Anyone can change their appearance with a charm, or a haircut. It's harder to change a person's smell.

There's Remus, for instance. Remus smells like the library, and lemon drops, and the faintest hint of blood.

James smells like the wind, like the outdoors, like broom polish. Like Lily, sometimes.

Peter has a shiny, sweaty smell of inkstains and worry, a nervous edge that somehow reminds him of Regulus.

Sirius knows Harry straight away, in this form. It's dark, and at this height he can't see the boy's face, but . .. he knows. Harry smells like Lily, like James, like Sirius himself. A storm of anger and uncertainty, and as Sirius shrinks away from the headlights of the Knight Bus, he has to fight the urge to bark in triumph.

_**My **godson. _

* * *

><p><strong><span>Taste<span> : **

He loses his sense of taste in Azkaban. Everyone does, sooner or later.

It's not that the prisoners are starved. But there seems little point in eating, after a while. The Dementors leach the pleasure from food, and what settles in his stomach is simply . . . grey. Ambrosia would taste of ash, in Azkaban.

He expects it to return, afterwards.

It doesn't.

He makes the right noises, based on memory, but it makes no difference, really. It's just a way of convincing himself he's still human.

He doesn't taste anything until Harry and his friends bring him food from the Hogwarts kitchens, until he sees their faces, when he mentions rats. Then there is something.

Bitterness.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Touch<span> :**

He finds Lily sitting by the window, staring sightlessly at the rain.

"He'll be fine. He's got the Cloak, and anyway . . . it's Prongs. He'll be fine." He doesn't know what else to say.

"Will he?" Lily murmers.

Sirius watches her throat bob as she swallows, pretending it doesn't hurt. He knows all about that.

He wants to make her smile. He likes it when she smiles – it's almost as good as James' laugh.

He nudges her elbow, forcing a laugh. "Bet you never thought your life would end up like this, eh? Worrying about fathead Potter." Her lip twitches, and he pushes on. "Remember Hogwarts? You _hated _Prongs. And you let him know it too." He sighs contentedly. "I lived for those insults, that biting wit of yours . . . . Happy days. Wish we could go back, sometimes."

Her mouth twists into something that really might be a smile, this time. "Back to the days when James was just a berk on a broomstick," she says fondly.

"That's the spirit. 'Course, you secretly fancied me."

Lily rolls her eyes. "Of course."

"But you were no competition for McGonagall."

Lily gives a sudden snort of laughter, and turns away from the window at last. "You're ridiculous," she says, and he grins.

"Yep. It's why you love me, isn't it?"

He doesn't expect her to throw her arms around him. "Yes," she says fiercely, her voice buried in his shoulder, and he stiffens, because this close he can feel her hair like silk against his cheek, the softness of her skin, and the softness of everything else too. Because she belongs to James, but he can't help it. There's a part of him that has always wanted anything James has.

He supposes he loves him too much.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Sound<span> : **

When he gets back, Peter is in the kitchen of his poky London flat. Sirius kicks off his boots, exhausted, and uses his teeth to tug off his gloves. It isn't until he gets closer that he notices his friend's red-rimmed eyes, the blotchy pallor of his cheeks.

He coughs. "Er. Have you been crying?"

Peter sniffs. "No."

It's not a very convincing 'no', but then, Wormy is a rubbish liar. Everything he thinks winds up written all over his face – he wouldn't last two seconds as a spy.

Still, Sirius doesn't really feel like pushing it. It's only been a few days since the McKinnons, and he thinks he's had as much misery as he can handle. Besides, he isn't like Lily, or Remus. He's just no _good _with crying. He was never encouraged in it - cousin Cissy is the only person he ever remembers crying in his family, and she's just a bitch.

So he claps Peter on the shoulder and pours him a healthy measure of firewhiskey. "Man up, Wormy," he says, in as encouraging a tone as he can manage.

Peter seems to shrink even further at this, but he's run out of ideas, and the best he can do, in the end, is to offer up more Firewhiskey and tell Wormy he can stay the night, so as to get _properly _drunk.

Peter bears up surprisingly well – he knocks back the drinks in dead-eyed numbness, anyway – and after a while Sirius falls asleep, waving absently at the sofa.

He sleeps fitfully. His dreams loop oddly, so that in each one he hears someone crying, choking back tears -

He starts awake at the sound of a bang. It takes him a moment to realize it's just the front door, and settle down again.

It's only Wormy leaving.


End file.
